Stability and variation in office chants of the Sarum Sanctorale

Abstract

This article uses multiple witnesses of the chants from four offices of the Sanctorale, transcribed from twelve manuscripts and an early printed antiphonal, in order to assess the stability of chants in late medieval sources associated with the liturgical ‘Use of Sarum’. Whilst there is usually a ‘main’ melodic reading or version for each chant, a considerable degree of variation exists among the readings from various witnesses. The data which support this argument allow manuscripts to be linked by networks of shared melodic material, both through melodic readings identical and present in multiple sources, and through divergences from such main versions. These observations help to illuminate something of the diversity of the written melodic tradition, raising wider questions about the relationship between written witness and performed reality, and about the fixity of ‘Sarum Use’, at least as far as it was transmitted in written form.